Interview with Arseniy Seroka, CEO - Serokell

Arseniy Seroka  

CEO, Serokell

Give us a quick overview on Serokell. When and how did you begin this journey and what were your motives to be successful in app development?

Serokell is a software development firm that mostly works with large-scale app development and delivers complex, fault-tolerant solutions for start-ups, medium-sized businesses, and enterprises.

Together with my friend Jonn Mostovoy, we founded Serokell while I still was in university. I have always known that I don’t want to work at the office ― I wanted to be a scientist. But I also wanted to have a stable financial position and help my family.

I think that our primary advantage is how we build our team. In the beginning, many of our engineers were friends that we had known for years, and we trusted them. As the company grew, we hired a lot of new people from different continents, but we still maintain this almost family-like relationship inside the company.

Moreover, the other thing that helps us to be so successful is the high technical expertise of everyone in our company. Our engineers not only have practical experience in software development but also have a scientific background. When you work shoulder to shoulder with the best in the field, it creates an amazing atmosphere of innovation that supports continuous mutual learning.

What is your role in the management and development of Serokell?

I am the CEO of Serokell, so my responsibility is to make major decisions that concern our firm, overview the management of the overall operations, and look after the resources of the company. Together with other C-level executives, we build strategies for further development and innovation in the company.

Tell us about your biggest achievement in the industry

We have had the pleasure to work with several large-scale blockchain projects. Among these are Cardano, which is in the top 10 projects by market cap right now, and Tezos, which is in the top 50. These are both extremely complex projects, and they have given us a great opportunity to exercise our engineering muscle, cooperate with multiple other development teams, and train our employees on world-class projects.

In close partnership with the ITMO University, we have also organized a scientific laboratory – Serokell Labs – which is concerned with the implementation of the latest AI and ML technologies into business solutions for our customers. Our goal is to stand at the intersection of science and practical development, and this has been a great step in that direction.

How do you schedule the development phases of the apps to promise the timeline to your clients?

At Serokell, we follow the principle “customer first”. It is our utmost priority to guarantee that the customer needs are heard and fulfilled.

That also means that every project goes differently for us. We quite often work with clients who are technology experts themselves and understand the process that is behind the creation of the application. They actively participate in the project development, and sometimes their own in-house team participates in development as well.

All in all, we understand that it is important to not get carried away with the implementation details. That’s why we concentrate on making all technical details serve a concrete business purpose. That is why each of our projects is supervised by an experienced project manager. They have their feet firmly on the ground and make sure that milestones are completed and deadlines are met.

How do you scheme your pricing model? How do you fix your budget?

We provide our clients flexibility to choose the pricing model that’s fit for them. Two of the most common choices are the fixed-price and the dedicated development team models.

Fixed-price is the best option if you already have detailed requirements for the software you want to build. We’ll research the area and potential solutions, give you an estimate, and will not change it during development (if the requirements don’t change).

If you choose to hire a dedicated development team, we’ll work as a dedicated development and IT service provider, helping you with everything you need regarding design, development, and DevOps.

In all cases, we work according to the initial agreement within the agreed budget and strictly follow deadlines.

What according to you are the best practices to attain client satisfaction?

We always start the development process by diving deeper into our client’s business so that we can offer personalized service. If necessary, we also conduct a technical audit of their existing software to identify and prevent potential bottlenecks and security issues. This ensures the long-term success of software projects. We also offer our clients reliable and flexible services, which is valued significantly by them.

How do you update your business system to be in pace with the technological advancements?

Serokell is a company that is at the forefront of multiple fields, fusing business and technical knowledge and actively participating in the development and implementation of cutting-edge tools and programming languages.

We have a team working on GHC, the main compiler for the Haskell programming language. Together with leading universities as well as partners – Kaspersky and Biocad – we help scientific knowledge serve business.

To be in pace with the newest trends, we attend (as participants and speakers) and sponsor conferences, organize internal training for the team, and constantly monitor every important innovation that happens in our field.

Recently, we’ve also created a new initiative to share our knowledge with the world: Serokell Academy. Right now, we have created multiple valuable video lectures on programming, cybersecurity, and ML, which are available on our website and YouTube.

What are your thoughts about AR, VR and Internet of Things (IoT)?

AR & VR have a great future ahead of them. During the pandemic, their development has slowed down in some industries such as marketing or events. But, I think these segments will catch up in 2021–2022. On the other hand, in the educational and industrial areas they have been developed pretty well due to the possibility of using VR/AR in remote communications, consultations, and up-skilling.

In IoT, the market is growing. There are large-scale projects both locally and globally. Obviously, IoT technologies will evolve and spread in general. The rest depends on the specific company: whether the team can create a valuable solution (which isn’t just hype-based), enter the market, and stay afloat.

What do you think will be the future of Mobile technology?

We are not experts in mobile apps, but it’s a global trend to go mobile. We regularly observe the statistics for different industries, and even in the B2B segment the move to mobile devices is evident. Further development of mobile technology has already brought such conveniences as text-to-speech/speech-to-text, smart watch and IoT integrations. These connections will develop further, providing the opportunities to control all kinds of appliances remotely.